Santander ‘Edge Up’ launching today

ForumUser7

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/1782372/santander-savings-account-Interest-rate-increase

TheBanker

If you don't fancy a Daily Express link, it's now on Santander's website

https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/current-accounts/santander-edge-up-current-account
 

MDMD

Looks like the 123 account has been withdrawn from sale as well.

TheBanker

MDMD said:

Looks like the 123 account has been withdrawn from sale as well.

End of an era!

ZeroSum

With the £5 fee, I can't see the attraction. Plenty of better options 

datz

As with their other current accounts, Santander always include a clause that lets you side-step paying the account fee. And as with previous accounts, you just don't add any direct debit mandates onto it. In this case, it can be found under clause 3: "The monthly fee will only begin to be charged once you have paid in £1,500 and set up 2 active Direct Debits for the first time."

Unfortunately, in this case, doing so seems to be of limited advantage - it appears they have tied all of the benefits to paying in the £1500 and having two active DD mandates on the account. I will not be testing whether their system enforces these DD requirements across all of the benefits, because the offer is still inferior to account combinations elsewhere (especially if you need to pay the £5 fee).

TheBanker

datz said:

As with their other current accounts, Santander always include a clause that lets you side-step paying the account fee. And as with previous accounts, you just don't add any direct debit mandates onto it. In this case, it can be found under clause 3: "The monthly fee will only begin to be charged once you have paid in £1,500 and set up 2 active Direct Debits for the first time."

Unfortunately, in this case, doing so seems to be of limited advantage - it appears they have tied all of the benefits to paying in the £1500 and having two active DD mandates on the account. I will not be testing whether their system enforces these DD requirements across all of the benefits - because it is still inferior to account combinations elsewhere (especially if you need to pay the £5 fee).

One of the main benefits of this account is the 1% cashback on certain household bills - but to to obtain this you have to pay the bills by Direct Debit. So if you don't set up the DDs to avoid the fee, you also miss out on one of the main benefits. 

I think this won't appeal to the people on this site who are happy to have multiple current accounts, multiple savings accounts and spend time on a regular basis moving their money between the accounts to maximise their interest and cashback/bonus returns. But it's not really designed for that. For someone who just wants a simple current account to pay their bills, spend on the card and keep a reasonable balance available this could be a good proposition despite the fee.

MisterMotivated

It seems like this would be a great account to switch my existing 123 Lite account (used for paying selected bills including a Santander mortgage) to, especially after I used the calculator on their website, which showed how much I'd benefit from each of the 3 accounts:

123 Lite: +£54.00

Edge: -£3.12

Edge Up: -£27.12

Seems like a no-brainer to me

Section62

MisterMotivated said:

It seems like this would be a great account to switch my existing 123 Lite account (used for paying selected bills including a Santander mortgage) to, especially after I used the calculator on their website, which showed how much I'd benefit from each of the 3 accounts:

123 Lite: +£54.00

Edge: -£3.12

Edge Up: -£27.12

Seems like a no-brainer to me

I expect the next step will be for Santander to start reducing some of the benefits of the 123/123Lite to encourage us to 'upgrade' to the new product. (with worse benefits)

brucefan_2

This text is towards the bottom of the page, final step before using their calculator:

Only available to customers that open the Santander Edge current account. This calculator shows the monthly interest from a Santander Edge saver based on the interest including the introductory bonus rate for 12 months from opening.

But I'm either missing something blindingly obvious or I can't see any other mention of the 'bonus rate' elsewhere.

Is it hiding in plain sight?

jim1999

The Select Account seems to have disappeared as well.  Not that it offered anything particularly exciting over and above the 123, but surprised they'd just ditch the entire concept.